Dodgers: The staff enigma. Sixteen wins can't be ignored, but his bumpy second half last year and a stiff shoulder this spring are red flags. He's most effective when he doesn't try to overthrow, but sometimes it's hard for hard throwers not to try hard to throw hard. Perfecting any offspeed pitch would be huge.

Giants: Lowry strained his right oblique in the Giants' home opener last season and never fully recovered. He now admits that he might have overcompensated for the injury by falling into some bad habits with his pitching delivery. That's trouble for Lowry, who must be mechanically sound to reach full effectiveness with his finesse-based array of deliveries. When Lowry's "on," his changeup is one of the best in the National League. And he throws hard enough to keep hitters off-balance.

COMMENTS

Coming off of our big first win of the year, we will see if the Dodgers carried any momentum to Pac Bell / SBC / AT&T Park tonight. Brad Penny has a chance to start 2007 like his all-star form of the first half of 2006, or the AA-ball form of the second half of 2007. Let's see which Penny shows up tonight (in either case, it is apparently a lighter Penny).

Meanwhile, the Giants eked out a win late last night that was almost blown by the headcase that is their closer, Armando Benitez. Inheriting two men on in the ninth with two outs and a 5-1 lead, Benitez proceeded to walk a batter on four pitches, give up a two-run-scoring hit, and then finally get Mike Cameron to pop up to Ray Durham for the third out. That's exactly the kind of stuff we want to see from the combustible Benitez.

All my Friday night plans turned to crap once I got the sniffles. No Free concert at Getty (with two of the members of Luna) and no 3 hours of Grindhouse. I'm watching 30 Rock off Faux TIVO w/ the (lovely) wife and have Gameday on. Go Tron Pierre!